All you can do is step back in time…

Ok…so. Let’s say you work at Country Road. You haven’t been there long – just a few days. You’re summoned to an A/W 2013 design meeting and you’re super excited. You think, “This is my shot…my chance to make a mark. Show the buying ladies of the Wide Brown Land what this once-great label is capable of doing, of being…”

You toddle off, purposefully clutching your compendium and mini-mood boards to your fashionable chest. Full of ideas. Full of anticipation. Full of hope.

And you end up being part of a design team that creates this.

It’s about then you realise your sartorial talents would be better put to use in the road safety / fluoro vest design department of Bunnings.

There are so many crimes being committed here La doesn’t know where to begin.

First up, what evil did this innocent piece of gauzy fabric ever visit upon the designers at CR to cause them to seek such bitter revenge? Many Chinese polyesters died in the making of that bolt of cloth, and you can bet your bottom renminbi they deserved a better ending than this.

And about the visual merchandising. Can they not do better than a mannequin shoved hard up against the fire hose reel door? And why did someone in VM really think this toptunic travesty was stylish enough to feature in the flagship window in the first place?

Imagine being a poor, innocent burgher of the Harbour City. You’re blamelessly making your way to the doctor, the shops or the Wordporium, when suddenly your visual senses are assaulted with this. A sartorial trip back to 1985, and not in a good way.

According to the CR seers, the gathered drop waist — something most of us bid farewell to in Home Ec class — is back! But don’t be alarmed, they tell us: we’ve updated it by incorporating it into a tunic! In Thai restaurant waitress fabric! And after you’ve ferreted out your Stuart Membery pants to pair it with, you should exchange Marky Mumford, Florence and Bruno Mars on your iPod with Foreigner and Tears for Fears!

Oh, and book yourself a holiday to Thailand! Because if these fash travesties bother me you so much, it’s a surefire sign that it’s time to get away.

You’ve cracked la code – now we know how they got there! It’s like that scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Meryl Streep explains to Anne Hathaway how her jumper came to be its particular shade of cerulean! X